


Aniron

by FarenMaddox



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M, Twincest, Twins, twin angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:38:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarenMaddox/pseuds/FarenMaddox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cursed in one world, blessed in the next, the twins Fai and Yuui decided long ago that they can only truly rely on one another.  They are inseparable, in body, in mind, in magic.  They view the world through sensations and judge people based on scent.  Empathy has its drawbacks, but they protect one another.  They set out to save Sakura and then betray her, together as always.  But somewhere along the way, cracks form and when they do, they bleed red.  Red like his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Honey and Juniper

“What does Mummy smell like?” Fai asked, sleepy and muted as they curled together under their blankets.  His head was resting on the same pillow as Yuui, and Yuui shoved the pile of messy hair that belonged to them both away from his face.

“How come you never smell it?” Yuui wondered.  Fai could feel things, many things, just like Yuui could.  But it didn’t always come to him as strongly, and when they were at dinner and the wrong person welled up with emotion, it was only Yuui who suddenly couldn’t eat.  Fai’s mind would wrap around him, cool and gentle, and he would relax, but the smell would linger sometimes.

“I can when you’re thinking about it,” Fai murmured, twisting and sticking his cold feet into Yuui’s legs, making Yuui kick him in retaliation.  But he didn’t push him away.  Fai was always cold, and Yuui wanted to help him get warm.  “When you think about Father I can smell the medicine, like you said.”

Father was full of jealousy and worry and pride.  A lot of extra ugliness would well up in him when his older brother the emperor was around him, but he always carried the feelings.  Fai would shy from him, flinching when he came near, and that made the feelings in Papa even stronger.  To Yuui, it smelled just like the medicine he had to drink when he’d eaten poisoned berries by accident.  Thick, bitter, chalky, slightly sour.  It had made him throw up for hours.

“Mummy smells like . . .”  Her sadness and worry and regret had always made them run up to her and press close and kiss her cheeks to try to bring out the feelings of love, but now it was fear, too.  Fear of the emperor and fear of Father and even the other ladies at court—and most of all, there was fear of _them_.  They didn’t kiss her cheeks anymore.  The smell of her was still sweet, but it was sickly now, and there was rottenness inside it.  “She smells like dead flowers.  Like someone picked them and then threw them away.”

Fai closed his eyes and pressed his face into the pillow.  His hand found Yuui’s and clutched it.  He didn’t like what was happening to Mum.  When she felt love for them, she was warm and soft and good.  But now there was always the dead-sweet smell of her pain, and soon it would become bitter and sour like Father.

Someone walked through the hallway with a mind and a heart in turmoil.  Emotions washed behind them like a dark cloud, making Yuui’s heart pound with fright.  He squeezed Fai’s hand tight.  The emperor was Father’s brother, and he often walked this hall.  Yuui and Fai both agreed they wanted to be commoners so they wouldn’t have to live in the palace and feel him here.  The sharp lady who worked in the kitchen had admonished them to be grateful for the food they ate and the furs on their shoulders and the wood for a fire in their room.  But they didn’t need those things, not as much as the sharp lady said.

Fai didn’t ask what the emperor smelled like.  He could feel it coming from Yuui.  He smelled like storm clouds, when the air changed and got heavy.  And like blood.  Like thick red blood pouring out hot from the sheep they’d seen with its neck cut once.  The emperor was cold, then hot, then something else.  His feelings changed too much, and they couldn’t trust him.

Then tendrils crept out around Yuui’s mind.  Fai.  Fai was making sure Yuui was protected, wrapping himself around Yuui so he wouldn’t have to sense all of the emperor’s feelings.  Fai’s presence was the best thing in the world.  It was like an easy rippling in a stream and a soft sigh of wind, cool on his brain and somehow on his tongue.  But not cold.  Just enough to soothe the burn of that hot-blood-smell feeling.  And Yuui wanted to help Fai, too, so he stretched out his own essence carefully, finding Fai’s troubled mind and curling himself around it, dampening the things from outside.

Fai relaxed, his fingers loosening their tight grip on Yuui’s hand.  He snuggled his head right against Yuui’s neck, and breathed out deeply.  He said Yuui was warm.  He said the feeling of Yuui protecting him was like a thick blanket and like a pretty song made for summertime.

“How come he hates us?” Yuui whispered, relaxing more the further away the emperor went.

Fai didn’t answer, too close to sleep.

“If he and Father and now Mummy all hate us . . .”

He didn’t know what to do with all the feelings and smells from his family.  He and Fai were hiding in their rooms so much already, playing with their toys so quietly, so no one would remember they were here and come to buffet them with the hatred.  What else could they do?  How to hide from it all?

Fai’s body against his was warm and lax, his breathing soft and slow.  Yuui would have believed he was asleep if not for the way his brain still flickered with thought and feeling.  Yuui felt the question rising up in him before Fai roused himself to ask it.

“Yuui?”

“You smell like fresh snow and juniper branches.”

“Oh.”

Fai’s nose was tucked into his neck, and he took a deep, slow breath.  “You smell like honey, Yuui.”

“I put it on my bread when we had a snack, you dummy.”

“Yeah.  But you always smell like honey.”

“Oh.”

Fai’s tongue, wet and ticklish, crept out and licked the skin on his throat, making Yuui squirm and shove at him.

“Ewwwwww, Fai~!”

“You don’t taste like it, though.”

“You’re so gross,” Yuui huffed, but then he wiggled close again.  “I’m tired.  Aren’t you tired?”

“Yeah.”

“So let’s sleep.”

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Maybe he thinks they don’t know he’s there.  Maybe he thinks they can’t hear his heavy breathing outside the door, or maybe he doesn’t know he’s so loud.  It’s not as though the twins have ever told anyone about their special magic.  About how they always know what people are feeling, about how Yuui can scent it in the air even when the people are controlling themselves.  Mum suspects, but she doesn’t even care anymore, she hasn’t since Father died.  She won’t see them.  She won’t come to court anymore.  She wears black and says it’s all her fault.  _Their_ fault, and hers for being their mother.  Yuui thinks she smells like salt and blood, sharp and tangy.

He thinks they don’t know, but they do.  They know.

The emperor comes and stands outside their room for long minutes, even hours sometimes.  They play with their toy soldiers, or they do their reading lessons, but quietly, so quietly.  And Yuui always leans his head close to Fai and takes deep breaths of his clean cold smell.  They twine their minds together, to dampen the ugly foreboding of the emperor’s approaching-storm feeling.  Fai envisions his mind as a flowing stream, guiding it around Yuui’s mind and making a barrier, to get rid of the metallic hot-blood smell he keeps choking on.  Sometimes, if the emperor won’t go away, Fai will ignore the way his own stomach is twisted in knots, and he’ll make Yuui go lie down on the bed.  He’ll lay over Yuui, smothering him with his presence and his scent so that Yuui can relax.

Today, they are silent, hardly breathing, their hands clutched too tightly on the carved wooden horses that are marching across the rug by the fire.  They are supposed to be at a reading lesson, but their tutor didn’t come.  They think maybe the emperor told him not to.  Or maybe he just stopped caring about them, if he ever did, the way Mum has.

They can hear him out there.  He’s in the hall, and he smells like lightning is about to strike and like the thick dark blood that Father died from choking up.  The emperor smells like so many bad things, like rust and rot and metal and the pig hung by its ankles behind the kitchen they weren’t supposed to see.  Yuui is covering his mouth and nose with a knitted blue scarf that Fai was wearing yesterday.

They pass their feelings back and forth to each other.

_tension_

_fear_

_need to hide_

_nauseous_

_crushing grip of pressure, pain in head and eyes and ears_

_help you_

_love you_

_hear sweet summer song_

_smell clean snow_

_love is honey and juniper_

_determined_

_survive_

_survive together_

“When?” Yuui asks Fai.

“Tonight,” he whispers.

They stand up quietly, and Yuui keeps making the sounds for their toy horses, so the emperor will think they are still playing.  Fai grabs their warm robes and lays them on the bed, and Yuui digs under the bed for the mittens that Father gave them as a present last year.  He pulls out the carved wooden box they hid there, behind their boots and stray toys.  The box of their treasures.  One of Mum’s lacy, pretty squares of cloth that she always dabs her face with; a polished stone from the river they stopped and played at when their carriage broke a wheel after they’d visited the opening of a new cathedral; two toy horses a stablehand had whittled for them, identical but for their manes being carved on opposite sides.

They are going to run.

One day, someday _soon_ , the emperor will not stay on the other side of the door anymore.  He will open it, and he will come in.  They don’t know what might happen after that.  All they know is the sick, twisting feeling in their bellies when the weight of his hate for them presses down.  Father’s death and Mother’s grief have only made it worse.  They know that it will hurt, when the unknown comes.  The emperor is changeable and strange, but his hate never goes away.

They won’t wait to find out.  They will run.

The sharp lady in the kitchens told them that their lives were easy here in the palace.  She said with her biting voice that they should feel lucky.  That other little boys had to work hard and didn’t get to have soft hands and lots of toys.  They never liked her because of her painful edges (Yuui said she smells like hard cheese and sour wine) but they liked the way she talked, like she was hitting something with her fist with every word.  They know that it will be difficult, away from here, but the sharp lady is wrong that they’re lucky and safe.  They will be better somewhere else.

People say twins are wrong, any twins.  They say only one of them should exist.  Fai and Yuui don’t say it, but they both know they’re thinking of it; of being separated by the hateful people who look at their faces and spit to ward off evil.  This is the only way they can be together.  They _must_ run.

 

* * *

 

Fai’s smell was wrong, that day.

Yuui didn’t know what else to do, when the choice came.  His only thought was how Fai was fading.  They were keeping as warm as they could and eating only the berries they were taught were safe, but the bread they took with them had been gone for days and nobody would let them inside where its warm.  Their hair was tangled, their faces dirty, and most people slammed the doors in their faces cursing “urchins” or “orphans” or “beggars,” but sometimes they looked long enough to see _identical_ as well as _dirty_ and those ones would go white and slam the door with a glob of spit on the ground or a cry of “cursed” or “evil.”

Those people reeked of selfishness and fear, and Yuui was never sorry to not go inside.  There was a person who smelled like warm bread, a few days before, and then gave them some _real_ bread, but they were sent gently away the next morning with the fermented smell of regret lingering under the soft bread feeling.

Fai smelled like dirty, slushy snow that day.  His cheeks had gotten pale and thinned-out.  Their warm boots were starting to crack.  They were walking to the next village, determined to keep trying farther and farther villages until they found one that didn’t know about cursed twins, but they hadn’t gotten anywhere before Yuui’s legs were tired and burning.

“Fai, slow down,” he said quietly.

“If we slow down, we might have to sleep in the woods again,” Fai said, turning back to him with a pinched frown.

They were beginning to understand that what they could feel was not the only special thing about them.  They had heard stories of people who died from getting too cold in the forest.  They knew people could die of not eating enough food.  But they had been running away from home for two weeks, and they weren’t dead.  They were cold and they were hungry, and Yuui knew Fai was just as tired as he was . . . but they aren’t dying.

Still.  That smell hovering around Fai scared him.

“As long as we stay close, we’ll be warm enough,” Yuui argued, even as he dragged his feet in the muddy road to catch up.  It felt like hard work, and he was short of breath.  He was wrong, even he knew that he was wrong.  Fai had started to feel cold all the time.  Even huddling close to Yuui didn’t make him warm.

Fai was the one who pushed to keep going.  To leave their warm huddle in whatever doorway they hadn’t been chased from, and to press on to the next village.  If he hadn’t smelled bad, Yuui might have believed he was still strong, but they never could hide anything, not from each other.

“I want to find a place to stop,” he said wistfully as he linked his arm into Fai’s and trudged onward through the wagon tracks in the mud.  “And stay.”

“We’ll have to work, when we do,” Fai said, and bit his lip.  Yuui thought he felt like worry.  It made the juniper smell too bitter when he did that.  “Maybe they’ll let us have something to eat before we have to work.”

“We can work without food, the first day,” Yuui said.  “But then they’ll give us food for working, so we’ll be okay.”

“What kind of work can we do?”

“Anything,” Yuui said cajolingly, shaking Fai’s arm to lighten him up.  “We’ll think of something.”

“I guess they’ll tell us, when we find someone who’ll let us stay.  We washed dishes for that lady who gave us bread.”

They didn’t find a town that day, and they had to go into the woods a long ways before they found a nice thick scrub to shelter in and get out of the wind.  They needed grease for their cracking boots, the kind the stablehand who whittled was always slathering on the tack for the horses.  Fai was shivering, and he couldn’t stop.  Yuui dragged Fai as close as he could, and wished their robes were bigger.  They should have taken one of Father’s big robes.  Father was dead and didn’t need his robes anymore.  But they had crept out of the palace without anyone noticing, and that was better than being warm, wasn’t it?

Fai’s smell wasn’t as strong as it was supposed to be.  And his shaking wouldn’t stop, no matter how Yuui tried to curl around him.  He didn’t complain or say he was cold, even set his jaw tight so his teeth wouldn’t chatter, but Yuui knew because Fai’s mind was heavy and dark against his.  It wasn’t soft sighing breeze, but a howling wind that heralded a storm.  Not like the emperor’s storms, no, nothing like those.  But not the way Fai should feel.

Maybe they should go back.  It was scary, but Fai could be warm and have something to eat.  Maybe the emperor had missed them.  Maybe Mum would protect them.

Fai could feel the faltering in him.  Fai could feel that Yuui was worried.

“No,” he said hoarsely, nudging his cold cheek against the hollow of Yuui’s throat.  “We’ll find a place soon.  Someone will help us.  I know it.”

Yuui tried to stop worrying, because it only would press down on Fai’s mind and make it hard for him to sleep.  He sent the tendrils of protection out to Fai, the ones that Fai said were like honey and music, and he closed his own eyes.  The moon was bright off the white bark of the trees, and it was hard to sleep with so much light and so much cold and so much to worry about.  He felt Fai’s mind nudging against his, but he was weak and tired, so it was only a little trickling rivulet of comfort.

They didn’t know the man was there, at first, and it took them some time and some genuinely annoyed argument before they decided why that had happened.

Fai was half-asleep, his mind blanketed by Yuui’s, so the man’s presence was smothered beneath drowsiness and Yuui’s song.  But Yuui should have known he was there.  Yuui should have smelled him.

And Yuui finally realized, only a long time later: he _had_ smelled him.  But the man smelled just like the forest.  He smelled like old trees and decaying leaves on the ground, of mud  and wet bark.  Yuui did notice the difference between the man and the forest soon enough, but _Fai_ smelled like trees, too, and the man _said_ he wanted to help.

When Yuui’s eyes lit on him, when he scrambled up with a shout, jerking Fai up with him, the man just smiled and took a step forward.  That step made Fai slide in front of Yuui, his eyes blazing with suspicion.

“Hello, there,” the man said gently.  He had a neatly-trimmed beard and spectacles, just like their tutor did.  Maybe he was a professor, too.  Oh, no, not spectacles, just a monocle, only on one eye.  There was a funny earl at court who wore a monocle who slipped them a sweet once when they were made to attend something boring.

“What do you want?” Fai asked, the bitterness of his juniper smell getting thick.

“I want to help you,” the man said with a smile.

“Why?”

The man’s laughter was a soft chuckle of disbelief.  “What do you mean?  You’re just children.  Anyone decent would want to help children if they came upon them hungry and cold in the forest.  Would you like to come with me?  I can get you something to eat.”

They didn’t move.

“You could have new bread and roast duck, and warm chocolate after, and then you could sleep in a bed.”

Yuui’s mouth watered, and he wanted Fai to stop shivering.  But if anyone decent would want to help children, then did that mean no one in Valeria was decent?

“We’re twins,” Yuui said boldly, stepping from behind Fai to stand at his side, where the stranger could see their faces.  The stranger didn’t even blink, only smiled more widely.

“I can see that.”

“Twins are, well, they say we’re cursed.”

“ _Yuui_ ,” Fai hissed, the juniper smell so sharp it burned his nose.

“They say that in this world, as I understand it.  But you see, I’m not from this world.  Where I am from, there is nothing wrong with being twins.  And there is another place I could send you to, where you would be cared for.  There, they celebrate twins.  In that world, they believe twins are _blessed_.  They think that magic is a special gift.  You would be trained how to use it.”

Fai perked up at that, despite himself.  Yuui didn’t mind much if they didn’t receive training, he was sure they could figure it out for themselves, but Fai liked lessons of every kind, even the ones that Yuui thought were boring.  _Magic_ lessons would thrill him.  And . . . blessed?  Yuui didn’t understand that at all.  They ruined things. That wasn't a blessing.

“Would we work to pay for our lessons and everything?”

The man shook his head.  His smile was sharp, like the kitchen lady, Yuui realized.  But the smell of dying leaves and lichen-coated bark wasn’t sharp, it was only old and thick with a cloying note of decay.

“Not for a long time.  I would require payment eventually, you understand, but only after you’re grown up.  I want you to be strong magicians first.”

“What kind of work will we do for you?” Fai asked, twining his hand unconsciously into Yuui’s.

“Oh, I will need to send you on a journey, to collect some artifacts for me.  But that’s something to worry about much, much later.  For now, I only need your promise that you’ll do it.”

“So you will help us go to a world where they like twins and magic, and they’ll give us food and lessons, and all we have to do is go on a journey later when we’re older?”

“That’s all there is to it,” the man said.

His smile was sharp, it was so cutting and strange, and Yuui could smell something underneath the forest smell that he didn’t understand because it smelled like Mummy, like sickly-sweet flowers . . .  Fai was so cold, his fingers numb in Yuui’s grip.  His face so hollow.  And Yuui was so hungry.  And a journey didn’t sound so bad.

“Okay,” he whispered.

Fai’s head snapped to look at him, and Yuui knew Fai could sense his fear, but there was a warm bed and something to eat coming soon and anything was better than staying here where the emperor could find them and come for them.

“We’ll do it,” Fai said more loudly.

“I will require a bond to ensure the promise is kept, naturally,” the man said, and he raised his hands.  The twins took a step back, hands clutching desperately—  
 _  
Run?_

_Yes, run_

But he wove something in the air, it fell on them, and their eyes glazed over into a blue as dull as a piece of dyed-blue cloth, the deep cut-crystal shine of their magic suppressed.

“If either of you meet a magician of greater power than yourself,” he said, his face alight with anticipation.  “You will kill that person . . .”

He thought they would remember nothing, because he did not understand how closely they had woven their minds together.  They heard his words and his curses through a babbling of water and laughing song, but they heard it.  They could not move and could not stop it and had to spend long hours piecing together what they individually knew to recreate the scene, but they heard it.

“You will not remember this.  You will only remember your promise to go on my journey when I call for you . . .”

But they would remember.  They would not understand it for many years, but they did not forget.

Then they were lost in a swirl of light, of colour, of sound.  Yuui held tight to Fai’s hand, would not let him go no matter how the howling wind pulled at him, held on until he was sure he’d smashed Fai’s fingers in his grip.  They heard a voice raised in anger.

“You owe me your kingdom!  I got that throne for you!  You will take them!”

“I never said I wouldn’t!  But not for you!  Give them to me!”

“You forget your place!”

“Begone!”

The howling wind hurt them, and Yuui had to close his eyes against the riot of colour and pain.  The long-haired man had raised his hands and inscribed runes in the air, driving back the man with the monocle, and he was making angry growls and screaming noises.  Yuui could feel his rage that someone was powerful enough to push him back.  The long-haired man felt only like sheer determination, so strongly that even from within this maelstrom Yuui could smell iron.

Then the man growled out a curse and left them.  The wind died away.  Yuui knew he was laying on the ground, but his head was spinning too much to get up.  He only made sure his hand was still in Fai’s.  He knew the man with the long hair was approaching because he smelled him.  But it didn’t make him afraid.  He smelled nice.  His emotions were thick, but they were things like satisfaction that the other man was gone, and concern that the twins were laying on the ground.  His mind was alive with worry and plans, but overall he smelled good.  It reminded Yuui of his mother, but not in the dead-flower way.

He smelled like Mum’s tea.  Like chamomile.

He was down on one knee in front of them when Yuui opened his eyes.

“Would you like to come with me?” he asked quietly.  “There’s a room prepared for you.”

“You knew we were coming?” Fai asked weakly, struggling to sit up.

This man’s smile wasn’t sharp like the man with the monocle. This man’s smile was as soft as their mother’s hands caressing their cheeks back when she still touched them.  And he reached out to them without a trace of fear, without a single acrid smell that Yuui could find.

“I’ve been waiting for you.  Let me help you up.”

Fai reached out to stop him from hurting Yuui when the man held out his hands, but he only took Yuui under the arms and pulled him up to his feet.  Yuui was dizzy and tired, and the man stayed on his knee, turning his shoulder to be Yuui's anchor.  Yuui breathed in the smell of chamomile and leaned into him.

“My name is Ashura.  What’s yours?”

“Yuui.  That’s Fai.”

“Come with me, boys,” he said, reaching out one hand to Fai as he began to stand up.  “Let’s get some food into you.”

Yuui took his hand, and Fai took Yuui’s.  Together, they went to see their new room.

 


	2. Honey and Juniper

Yuui trotted behind Ashura and Fai behind Yuui, both of them following the calm, unhurried scent of chamomile and lavender.  Yuui was beginning to understand, as Ashura’s long sleeve fluttered around their joined hands, that Ashura’s clothes were what smelled so good, that it was a _real_ smell and not just in his head.  But the feelings that came from him were so similar that it made little difference.  There was a hint of something darker and more bitter that Yuui thought was worry.  Worry over the man they’d met in the woods.  Regret was willow-bitter on Yuui’s tongue the farther they traversed into the smooth stone castle, wafting from Ashura and giving the lavender a bad taste.  There was something he wished had not happened.

Yuui had liked seeing him make those swirling patterns in the air that made the wind blow and force the bearded man away from them.  But he thought Ashura’s bitter taste came from there.

Fai’s hand was squeezing his fingers painfully tight, his face locked into a frown and his own scent of juniper turning acrid.  He did not like the way they were following the long-haired stranger, even though he didn’t give off any signs that he wanted to hurt them.  That was Fai. He didn’t like doing anything unless he had every fact first .  Yuui just smiled at him and sent a warm, affectionate nudge toward his mind.  They didn’t need to worry so much.

“My . . . lord?” Yuui whispered hesitantly.  Ashura had a crown on, and Yuui thought he must be important.  If he got his title wrong, the man might be angry, and angry feelings were always so _thick_.  He always felt like they choked him.

“Oh,” the man said, seeming surprised.  “I should explain . . . You have come to the country of Celes.  It’s a cold country, like your own Valeria, but we have more snow.  And I am the king of Celes.”

“Kin-ge,” Fai’s tongue tested out the unfamiliar word.  It felt strangely weighted on his tongue, as though it came from somewhere else.  He’d always heard foreign people spoke other languages, and now he wondered how they could speak to each other.

“It is much like the emperor of Celes, but I have a council of nobleman who help me make decisions.”

Yuui was curious, and he felt the bricks being laid in Fai’s mind that meant he was thinking and trying to put information together.  But they were tired, and they were nervous, and so they stopped asking questions and followed Ashura obediently.

“This is where you’ll stay,” Ashura said, breaking the silence and pausing outside a polished wooden door.  This castle was nice; warmer and cleaner than the palace they’d run away from.  Ashura knocked before he opened the door, and the woman who was waiting inside was ready with a smile on her face by the time Fai and Yuui trailed in behind him.

“Nadeshiko, you received my summons,” Ashura said, sounding glad.

“Your majesty,” she said, dipping into a low curtsey, splaying folds of clean white about herself and pooling the long skirt on the thick blue-and-gold carpet.  Yuui thought that she seemed very young, even though she must be a grownup. 

“I apologize that their arrival was so unexpected.”

“Not at all, sire,” she said.  Her voice was beautiful, like music.  “Things are nearly ready.”  She bowed again, and this time she was bowing to Fai and Yuui, and they gravely nodded their heads to her, as they’d always been taught.  People were expected to bow to them, because of Father being brother to the emperor.  “Welcome to Ruval, my lords.”

“Thank you,” Yuui whispered.  He did not know what he was supposed to do next, so he stayed by Ashura and carefully twined his fingers in the man’s sleeve when Ashura let go of his hand.

“There are clothes prepared for them?”

“Yes, and the beds are made up, with a fire in their room.  Food should be arriving from the kitchen any moment, sire.”

“Thank you.”  Ashura turned and looked down at the two of them.  “Boys, this is Nadeshiko, a servant in Ruval Castle.  She will be taking care of you for a while.”

Nadeshiko curtsied again, a little less dramatically this time, and her smile was sweet and kind.

“Not you?” Yuui whispered, shocked by his own daring.  He knew what happened when you questioned what you were told by an emperor or a king.  Fai’s sharp spike of fear was like ashes in his senses, and he held himself very still.

Ashura seemed surprised, caught on a long blink of his eyes and it took some time for his words to come out.  Surprise made the lavender more heady and strong.

“Why on earth would you want me to take care of you?  I don’t know anything about children.”

Yuui wasn’t sure he should breathe, but Ashura wasn’t angry.  He was waiting for Yuui.

“You smell good,” Yuui said carefully, fingering at the embroidery on Ashura’s sleeve.

Ashura was staring at him, like he was waiting for something else.  But Yuui didn’t have anything else to say.  They didn’t tell people.  Not about what they could do.  People were afraid of their magic, were always so afraid of them . . .

Fai’s mind was crashing against his like a river against a rocky shore.  He wanted Yuui to stop, to retreat, to be quiet and obedient and he didn’t want to get hurt.  But Yuui was defiant.  Yuui wanted to try.

Ashura knelt down by Yuui, and a chamomile smile washed over him.  Ashura didn’t look like he smiled very much, not like Nadeshiko did.  Yuui wasn’t used to seeing such a thing being directed at _him_.  Nobody smiled in Valeria, and not at _twins_.

“I can try,” he said softly.  “But I might need your help.”

Yuui didn’t know why he would need that.  But Ashura was looking at Nadeshiko, who was grinning and making a shooing motion with her hands.  Ashura’s arms slipped around Yuui cautiously, and then they were both confused and nervous and stuck in one place because they didn’t know what came next.  But he felt so good, Yuui thought, and pressed his face against Ashura’s shoulder to bury himself in the calm, quiet sensations of him.

“Fai?” Ashura asked, looking over Yuui to his twin.  Yuui spread out his mind into Fai’s, trying to draw him in.  Fai dragged his feet, but he came, draping himself over Yuui’s back and closing his eyes when Ashura’s hand touched his unruly hair.  Then Ashura pulled a moss-covered twig out, grimacing in distaste even while Fai was keening at the tug on the snarled tangle.  Yuui giggled, then clapped his hands over his mouth because they weren’t supposed to be happy it made people upset and especially the ugly emperor—

But Nadeshiko was laughing, too, the sound of bells tinkling underwater, and she was holding out her hands wide, one to each of the boys.  “Come with me, now,” she said.  “We must draw you a bath, and try to clear out the birds that must have nested in your hair.”

Fai was blushing, digging his fingers frantically at his scalp, but Yuui grabbed his wrist and made him take Nadeshiko’s hand.  The sweetness of her washed over both of them, and Yuui smelled flowers and fruit that he didn’t know the names for, just smelled things that were sweet and pretty until he saw Fai’s nose twitch with a half-shared sensation.  She tugged them along, her skirts and the trailing ends of her long, long hair brushing against them.

Yuui looked back over his shoulder to see that Ashura was standing up and straightening his heavy robes.

“I will see you again tomorrow,” Ashura answered the unspoken question.  “Go with her now.”  His hands were loose and empty at his sides, and Yuui found himself thinking that Ashura hadn’t wanted to let go of him.  But he went with Nadeshiko as he’d been told.

She got them a warm bath so they could get clean, and then took them back to the suite of rooms they’d been given, decorated all in deep blues and golds in the sitting room and dressed in quieter tones of white and pale blue in the room where they were to sleep.  Sated, warm, clean, and awash with berries and lavender and all manner of good smells, Yuui and Fai ignored the second bed in their sleeping quarters to huddle up together.  So overwhelmed, by good things and rich things and by peace and stillness, they could not fall asleep.  They twined their minds together like creeping vines and they were soothed.

Though they scarcely dared to believe it, perhaps it was true that twins were blessed here.

  


* * *

 

Their first week in Ruval was quiet and uneventful, exactly as Ashura ordered.  They overheard him telling Nadeshiko that they would be allowed to play quietly, with no lessons or schedules, and not be introduced to anyone until they were comfortable.  They couldn’t even imagine that they could become more comfortable than they already were, but somehow it happened.

They were given food they’d never seen before, that they could hardly believe was real.  Ashura told them that they would be able to try the foods of different countries and perhaps even different worlds here, because mages sometimes brought things home from their travels.  They had been starving on the road and little better in the palace due to neglect and punishment.  Their favourites were the plump bluish-black berries that stained their lips and made them stick out their dark-stained tongues and laugh.  Yuui finally found a smell he could identify to describe their young caregiver.

Their cheeks filled back in, and their hair shone gold.  They slept and ate and played and slept and ate.  They giggled and chased each other across thick warm carpets.  Nadeshiko tickled them and they were stunned and confused, and then they laughed and threw themselves at her and begged for more.  No one looked disapprovingly at them, told them to be quiet, or spit at them.  There was only Nadeshiko with her berries-and-roses smells, laughing with them and crawling around on the floor playing toy soldiers; or Ashura sitting quietly in a chair by the fire with a book, looking up to smile at them when they ran past him.

Sometimes, Ashura’s attention would turn completely his book, and Fai would feel the usual weight and depth of his presence become more distant, but buzzing against Fai’s ears with all the things Ashura was thinking.  Yuui said that his usual smell sunk deeply into the scent of ink, rich and thick and serious but still just a tinge of calm blue underneath.  They could feel his mind whirl around like a flurry of snowflakes and sometimes his fingers would trace patterns against his leg even while his eyes moved over the text.

When that happened, Fai would shush his brother’s loud play and creep close, his eyes on the movements of Ashura’s hands.  He would kneel down at Ashura’s side and just _wish_.  He didn’t understand the language in Ashura’s books yet and couldn’t wait for the lessons they’d been promised.  He would breathe deep, trying to smell Ashura like Yuui did.  He would only smell paper and the lavender clinging in the brocade of Ashura’s robes, but then Ashura would slip ink-stained fingers into Fai’s hair and pet his head absently, and those were the times that Fai would lean against him and feel quiet.  Yuui would run over to Ashura and touch him whenever he wanted and Ashura would always smile, but Fai waited for these moments.

They agreed, snuggled up close in their bed under heavy white blankets, that they could not remember any time being better than this week.  They had been nervous at first, even after being fed and given a bath and even after Nadeshiko smiled at them so much.  But a few days of running around their living quarters playing as loud as they wanted, the only reprimand to their shrieks and giggles being a slight wince from Ashura when he was engaged in reading, had dampened even Fai’s fears.  All the feelings that came from Nadeshiko and Ashura were good.  None were bad.  Sometimes they would get tired before the twins did, but when their colour became muted like that, Fai and Yuui would sit down on the lush carpet and play quietly and wait for the adults to be vibrant again.

Nadeshiko said they had a strange extra sense about when the adults were frazzled or distracted and they were as good as angels about it.  Ashura agreed, but with an inky-scented frown as he puzzled over their attentiveness to his moods.

They didn’t want to tell about what they could sense.  They didn’t want to tell even Nadeshiko that they knew what she was feeling.  No one else had that kind of magic, of that Fai was certain.  If there was anyone else they would have noticed the twins and revealed themselves.  Yuui was the only person who had ever talked to Fai about the way people smelled.  They weren’t normal, and they were scared that Ashura and Nadeshiko wouldn’t like them if they knew.  What if they hated that kind of magic in Celes?  What if it was like being twins in Valeria?  As much as it had hurt to watch their mother turn black and choking bitter, Fai thought it would be worse to see Nadeshiko stop smiling and to make the sign of the devil at them.

“I really like it here,” Yuui whispered one night, shifting his legs against Fai’s.  They’d been allowed chocolate to drink after supper, and now their bellies were so warm and tight that it was hard to get comfortable.  He had his face close to Fai’s, but he pulled it back with a frown.  His mind was darting with worry, hard to catch hold of.  “You aren’t mad that I said we’d come here, right?”

“I think Ashura knows that we have to go on a journey for that man later,” Fai said.  “But he didn’t say anything to us.  Maybe it doesn’t bother him.  Maybe it will be okay.”

“You are mad.”  Yuui’s eyes were wet and his mind prickled with tears.  He didn’t smell like honey right now at all, and Fai felt uneasy when the sweet smell went away.  Fai let his feelings go flooding out into Yuui to reassure him.  If he couldn’t catch hold of Yuui’s mind, he’d _drown_ it with good things.

“I’m not.  I like Ruval, too.”  He tangled his legs around Yuui’s to stop his twins’ restless shifting.  “I wanted to find a place where they’d leave us alone, but this is better.  They _like_ us.  I . . .”

He sent his feelings because he couldn’t think of the proper words.  He sent soft firelight and down pillows and sparkling laughter and a pretty snowflake that didn’t melt.  He saw Yuui’s face relaxing from its drawn-up worry, and he saw chocolate smeared at the corner of Yuui’s mouth.  He craned his neck and licked the chocolate up with a swipe of his tongue.

“Fai!” Yuui protested, wrinkling his nose and rubbing the saliva off his cheek.

“You had chocolate.”

“I _have_ a handkerchief.”

“I know.  But you taste good.”

“I taste like chocolate, dummy,” Yuui shot back, but his feelings were warm and soft.  Fai burrowed his head against Yuui’s neck, the way he always did when he was sleepy, and Yuui put his arms around him.  Fai still got his stomach twisted up into a knot of pain when he thought about Valeria, about how they might have been _separated_.  Tangling up with Yuui to sleep was his reassurance that Celes was a better world.

  


* * *

  


 

Nadeshiko was showing them how to make pretty designs by wetting leaves with watered-down ink and splotching them on paper.  She’d spread a dark bed sheet beneath them and admonished them to be careful not to get ink on the carpets.  They huddled with their shoulders pressed together in front of the fireplace, and Yuui had one hand quietly twisted in Nadeshiko’s bountiful curly hair as she lay beside him.

A quick knock at the door made Nadeshiko straighten up quickly, smoothing her skirts and good-naturedly scolding Yuui as she untangled his fingers from her curls.  She always projected a flash of anxiety like a tiny crack of lightning when Ashura came, because she worried about being a good servant.  She was very young, and Ashura had picked her to be their companion because she didn’t have a family of her own yet.  She had anxious feelings about working very hard to be a good servant, little pins-and-needles feelings that sometimes went prickling through her warm aura.

Ashura came in, and Yuui bounded over to him in a hurry, taking his hand and tugging him over to see their leaf designs.

“Nadeshiko said there’s lots of things you do in winter because you can’t go out in the snow, and she said I can learn to sew if I want to, and see our painting?  Fai’s looks like a spider!”

Ashura surprised him by catching him under the arms and lifting him up, and Yuui was so startled that his body froze and he stopped talking.  Fai jumped up from his painting and clenched his fists, ready to rush to Yuui’s defense.  But Ashura was sitting down in his favourite chair, drawing Yuui easily into his lap and laughing as he pushed his messy hair out of his eyes.

“You’ve been having a good time with Nadeshiko, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Yuui said, subdued.  Ashura felt like determination, and that meant that even though they liked Nadeshiko, Ashura was going to take her away.

“Good.  Nadeshiko told me that she very much likes taking care of you.  I’m glad that you all like each other so well.”

Fai was standing apart from them, his face tight with tension, and Ashura finally seemed to notice that Yuui was drooping beneath his hand instead of leaning into his touch.

“What’s wrong, boys?”

“Nadeshiko can’t stay, right?” Yuui asked in a harsh voice.  Fai stood up even straighter, sending a sharp reprimanding feeling toward his twin.  Yuui was starting to forget that they had to be afraid of the grownups.  Now Ashura would do something terrible, even though he’d been so nice until now.

But instead of the roiling feelings of anger, Ashura’s surprise became a current of blue.

“Oh,” he said softly, and then he reached out one of his hands and beckoned Fai to come near him.  Fai did as he was told with stiff steps.  “It’s all right, come here,” he said, and his waving hand caught Fai around the waist and drew him into Ashura’s side.  Fai was nearly blank with surprise.  He didn’t understand the feelings or the way he was being held.  “It will take you some time to be happy, won’t it?” he asked, but he didn’t seem to want an answer because he kept speaking.  “Yes, Nadeshiko can stay.  I only wanted to make sure that you liked her.”

Fai still didn’t understand, because he didn’t know why Ashura cared what they liked.  But he was holding them close and his feelings were soft and sad and determined, so Fai rested his head on Ashura’s arm and reached out his hand to find Yuui’s and twine their fingers together while Ashura talked to them.

“I came today because I wanted to tell you about my plans.  You’ve been staying here in your rooms because I wanted you to know that this was your home and that you’re safe here with us.  But now I think it’s time to introduce you to the rest of Ruval Castle, and to start your education.  Nadeshiko will still take care of you, but you won’t be able to play with her as often.  You’ll have a lot of lessons, and you’ll make some other friends, too, I hope.”

“Friend?” Yuui cocked his head quizzically.  “Valeria has friendship with Opanna, Father said so.”

“Ashura means we’ll have lessons about alliances with Celes,” Fai said importantly.

“Oh,” Yuui said, wrinkling his nose.  “We never had to learn about that because we’re not wanted and don’t get to be princes.”

Ashura was staring at them.

“But we’ll do our lessons if you want,” Yuui added hastily.  “I promise!”

Ashura and Nadeshiko had turned dark blue and Nadeshiko had covered her mouth with her hand and she was crying.

“You . . . don’t understand, do you,” Ashura said with a heavy, inky voice.

Nadeshiko made a little gasping sound, and she ran forward and scooped them both up in her arms and hugged them tight, one to each side, turning her head back and forth and pressing kisses in their hair.  “Oh, boys, my poor loves,” she said.

They didn’t understand everything, but they did know that the room was full of anger and sadness and achingness and it was all too heavy.  Too much.  It was too strong and they needed to make it stop.  So they lifted their faces and kissed Nadeshiko in return, and said they were happy and she shouldn’t cry.  Ashura’s emotions were pounding on them like heavy waves, so Yuui went back to him and climbed back into his lap, not caring or careful where his arms or legs were poking into the man, and even though Yuui was nervous about it he kissed Ashura’s cheek like he did for Nadeshiko.

“Why is everyone sad?” Fai asked, content in the circle of Nadeshiko’s arms but still bewildered.  “Yuui, why are you sad, too?”

There were too many bad feelings.  Yuui could barely breathe past the heavy and acrid smells.  He was frantic to make Ashura feel better quickly and he didn’t want to leave him, but he couldn’t take so much.  He reached out his arms to Fai with a whimper.  Fai dashed to him and let Yuui bury his face in his neck, wrapping his arms and mind around his twin.  Yuui breathed deep against his skin, soothed by the familiar coolness of Fai.

“Right,” Ashura said, arms wrapped firmly around Yuui’s waist, sharing him with Fai.  “Nadeshiko, starting tomorrow they’ll need to start spending some time out of their rooms.  They shouldn’t be this upset just because we are.  They just need . . . Some new experiences, I think.  And they certainly need to see the rest of the castle.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Nadeshiko said, head bent.  “W-would you— you could accompany us, if you like, when I show them the castle.  I-I mean, of course you could, sire, please pardon me—”

“It’s all right,” Ashura said quietly.  “Would you like that?” he asked the twins.

Fai could feel Yuui’s agreement sinking into  his skin, and he too felt relieved that Ashura would go with them.  He was a king and maybe nobody would spit on them if he was there.

“Yes, please,” he said, trying to smile because Yuui and Ashura and Nadeshiko had all said he should try.

Ashura’s smile was better.  “Then I shall just have to find some time,” he said, moving one hand away from Yuui to ruffle Fai’s hair.  “You’ll have a reading and maths tutor who will come in and test your skills while you’re waiting for me.  You’ll start lessons with him in a few days, after he decides what you need to learn.”

Fai nodded soberly, but Yuui was being Yuui again.  He was always asking Ashura more questions like he was completely sure that was okay.  They didn’t know Ashura yet, did they?  If they bothered him too much, he might not want them anymore.  Fai didn’t want to go back to Valeria.

“What about magic lessons?” Yuui asked, leaning back away from Fai now that the mood was improving.

“You’ll begin those next week, mostly likely.  There’s a Circle of Seven that oversees Ruval University, where most of our mages train and live, and I’ve asked them to choose someone to come stay at the castle to teach you.  That may take some time, you see. We have to determine what kind of magic you’re able to do and how much magic you have, and the mage they send here might need to return to the university and choose a different tutor for you.”

“Sir?  You have magic, don’t you?” Fai asked boldly, though he dropped his eyes and ducked his head.

“I do,” Ashura said calmly.  “I trained at the university for several years before I ascended the throne.  I still study as often as I can.”

“Will you ever give us lessons?”

“I certainly shall,” he said with a smile, squeezing his arm tight around Yuui’s waist.  “I have many responsibilities, but I think you are the most important of them.  I can’t spend as much time with you as I’d need to, to train you properly, so I’ll need someone from the university to help me.  But I think I’d have two very unhappy boys if I didn’t spend some time with you.”

Yuui leaned heavy against Ashura, looking sleepy and his thoughts muted with pleasant relaxation.  “We like you a lot,” he pronounced.

Ashura laughed at that, and there was a tiny happy smile that matched the flowering of the chamomile in his scent.  He didn’t say anything out loud, but Yuui and Fai knew he liked them, too.  It was a strange feeling, but not a bad one.  It felt warm.

  


* * *

  


 

The next day, the tutor came in early, along with two silent young men who set down a table and two small chairs and stared at the twins until the tutor cleared his throat ostentatiously.  They only felt like curiosity, so Yuui didn’t mind them much.

The tutor smelled papery-old, musty but familiar.  He had spots on his hands and his hair was thin and white even though his back was strong and postured.  He told them he’d tutored Ashura and two of Ashura’s cousins when they’d been young children.  He wanted them to do reading and writing exercises, and then maths tables.  He said they would learn basic conversation in the languages of the countries that surrounded Celes, and they would learn histories of past kings and wars.  First he needed to know how far they’d gotten in their lessons in Valeria.

When they told him they came from another world and couldn’t read the language, he rubbed his hand over his eyes and sighed deeply.  Yuui turned his nose away from the sharp impatient smell of pepper.  The tutor sat them at the table with paper and ink and began drawing the letters of his language, making the sounds of them with his mouth.  He wrote their names for them, and set them to copying their names and the other letters over and over again.  They grew bored quickly, and looked over to see that the old man was sitting in a chair by the fire with his chin against his chest, napping.  They began putting other letters together, making the sounds with their mouths, so they could write Ashura’s name and Nadeshiko’s name.  When they thought they had it right, they put it on a new piece of paper, and drew pretty swirls around their names, so they could give Ashura the paper when they came back.  They tried to write down the things they liked best, so they could show off their writing.  Nadeshiko smelled like their favourite berries, and that was easy: “sno beri” was obviously correct.  They wanted to write chocolate but they couldn’t find the right letter to start and had to settle for “cocolat.”  Their toy horses were simple but “kin-na” wasn’t the way to spell king and they had to give up on that.  Then Fai wrote “Yuui” and Yuui wrote “Fai” and then they couldn’t stop giggling and woke their tutor up with a sharp neck of his neck and a smacking noise on his lips.

“Right,” he said importantly, standing up and talking as though he’d only just sat down.  “Let’s see if you’ve got the alphabet, then we’ll move on to history.”

They showed him their pages, ink-smeared and creased and argued over.  His eyes became wide and he smelled of excitement like a clean spring breeze.  He made them explain their choices.

“You boys are very, very bright, aren’t you?” he asked, with a rabid gleam in his rheumy old eyes that made them nervous and cling together.

“I don’t know,” Yuui whispered, and Fai didn’t say anything.

He took in their nervous posture and his feelings of excitement were dampened under the more muted sensations of compassion.

“Well,” he said, drawing his armchair close to the table.  “I think we’ll keep working on writing today.  You’ve got a good idea, but let’s talk about where you went wrong . . .”

Fai smelled so excited that Yuui had to turn his face away from his own brother to get a good clean breath.  He wanted _exciting_ lessons, not _writing_ lessons.  When were they going to learn magic?  When were Ashura and Nadeshiko going to come and take them to see the other parts of the castle?

“Yuui,” Fai hissed when he caught him not paying attention.

“I’m _bored_ ,” he hissed back.

“It doesn’t _matter_ ,” Fai shot back at him.  “We have to do what Ashura wants because he takes care of us.  And that man who we have to work for later said we need to learn a lot.”

“What’s that? Eh?” their tutor asked sharply.  “What man?”

They were silent.  Until Ashura told them it was okay, they couldn’t say anything about that.

  


* * *

  


 

Ashura had one blond twin firmly attached to his legs the moment he stepped into the room, while Fai hung back by the table, fingering all the writing they’d been doing.  Yuui was babbling happily about learning the etymology of the word “berry” and how they used to be in much closer contact with the country east of them and had all kinds of words they borrowed, and babbling about how he wanted to see the castle’s kitchen and he wanted to see where Ashura’s rooms were, and asking if Nadeshiko was coming soon . . .

Fai covered his pages of writing with his hands and gave Ashura a shy look.  “Do you want to see?” he whispered.

Ashura put a hand on his head while he pulled the writing toward him with a smile.  He felt like he was tired, but he wasn’t so worn that he couldn’t indulge them for a few minutes.  Fai just thought Ashura should see that they were working hard, so he’d be pleased and think they were earning their keep.  If this was the work he wanted them to do, they had to work hard.  He would try not to make Ashura any more tired.

“This is very good,” Ashura said, smiling down at both of them.

Ashura felt like so many things—pride, joy, curiosity—and this overall _happiness_ that Fai and Yuui were here, much to Fai’s shock — so much of it welled up in him that Fai started to smell chamomile in the back of his nose.  He didn’t want to make Ashura’s day harder, but he thought it would be okay if he hugged him for just a minute and showed him that he knew how to spell “king” now.

“This is very impressive,” Ashura told him.

Fai ducked his head.  “No. We already knew how to write in our other language, so we just had to think about this one a little bit.”

“Well, I am impressed,” Ashura said, jostling him a little bit, radiating his intention to make Fai loosen up.  “If you think you can do better, then you’ll have to show me.  Later, that is.  Right now, it’s time to take you on a tour.  After I show you everything, you can eat supper with me in the room where I usually take my meals.”

Yuui was overjoyed by that, and Fai found himself straying closer to his brother to absorb everything that came from him.  He liked the way Nadeshiko and Ashura felt, and the new tutor wasn’t bad.  But the feeling of Yuui was still his favourite, and always so much stronger than anything else he sensed.

“Ashura, may I ask you a question?” Fai asked cautiously, twisting his fingers into Yuui’s pretty robe.  They always had clean robes now, because Nadeshiko was here to make sure the servants didn’t ignore them.

“Of course.”

“Your language isn’t the same as ours, is it?”

“No, it’s not.  I think you’re asking me why we are able to understand each other.”

“Yes, sire.”

Ashura always felt like conflict when they called him that.  He didn’t like it, Fai could tell that much easily, but he didn’t seem to know if he should tell them that he didn’t.

“It’s a spell I put on  you,” he explained.  “It translates the language of Celes for you.  But I should tell you that I can only cast it on you once.  If there are any other language in our world that you want to speak, you’ll have to learn them the hard way.”

“I can do that,” Fai said cautiously.  He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could.

“Your majesty,” the tutor said, interrupting them with a slight wave of his age-spotted hand.  “If I may beg a word of you before you go?”

Ashura walked with him to the corner of the room and spoke with him in a hushed voice.  Fai and Yuui understood they weren’t to come over and listen, but they couldn’t help opening themselves wide enough to catch the feelings they projected.  There was excitement with a heady threading of anxiety.  Ashura was having his feelings about them again, and the tutor was looking forward to something.

Ashura came over to them after a few minutes and took their hands.  “Are you ready to go?”  There was a strain around his eyes when he smiled and there was a tight coiling-up feeling in his brain.  Fai didn’t want to hold his hand right now, because the feeling was too nervous, so he slipped his hand into Yuui’s instead.  Yuui kept being too bold, though.  It was like he wasn’t even afraid anymore.

“What’s wrong, your majesty?” Yuui asked as he trotted beside Ashura.

Ashura’s smile was like a phantom, like it happened a long time ago and there was just a transparent bit of it left.

“I’m worried about a few things.  But let’s talk about them later, okay?  Let’s have fun first.”

They learned about the rooms where Ashura met with his council and the rooms where important visitors stayed when they came, and then they went downstairs and Nadeshiko came out of the kitchens and joined them and asked Ashura if it would be all right to show them some of the areas where the servants went.  She always got nervous about asking Ashura questions, but still her sweet feelings were a welcome relief from Ashura’s tightly-wound-up mind, so the twins went to her side.

“All right,” Ashura said quietly, releasing them.  “Bring them to my quarters when you’re done, please, and tell the kitchen that they will be taking supper with me there.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Nadeshiko said with a dramatic curtsey.

The servants’ quarters and work areas were their favourite part of the castle so far.  The rest of it felt chilly and empty and like snow on a barren field.  These places were all light and heat and people dashing around with so many different feelings that they couldn’t keep up.  It was confusing, but fun.  The servant dashing past them was full of hatred about herself, so sad and disappointed that Yuui said he tasted saltwater, so they decided to bring her a pretty flower next time they came.  There was a young man bringing big buckets of water somewhere, and he kept thinking about Nadeshiko and the feelings in him were so giddy that Fai could hardly breathe near him.  He and Yuui giggled because the man _liked_ Nadeshiko.  Then a woman who was chopping something with a big thick knife was feeling relaxed and easy-minded, so they crept close to watch her work her way through a pile of root vegetables.

They found a cat, which they’d never seen before.  Yuui screeched in shock when it leapt out at them and Nadeshiko laughed.  She said it was their best mouser, even though they didn’t understand what that meant.  Curious about what they could sense from a cat, they let it twine through their legs, butting its head on them, and found that the cat only felt warm.  Then its ears twitched, and it felt _sharp_ somehow and ran away.

After an exhausting few hours of crawling over every surface in the castle they were allowed, with Nadeshiko patiently explaining everything to them, she finally led them up to Ashura’s rooms.  The salt-water lady and another servant were already there, laying supper out for them.  Ashura strolled in from an adjoining room, a book in his hand.  He set it down on a sideboard with a big smile on his face, and didn’t seem surprised that Yuui ran straight to him.

“Let’s sit down at the table before you tell me about everything, shall we?”

They feasted on creamy soup, rock quail, Celes’ signature buttery braided bread, and goat cheese; Yuui babbled the whole time about Nadeshiko, about chopping vegetables, about how they saw a cat for the first time, and Ashura just smiled throughout.  He wasn’t eating very much supper, Fai noticed.  He was still strung up tight with tension and worry.

“Your majesty?” Fai asked quietly when Yuui paused for breath.

“Yes?”  The conflict he got inside whenever they called him that spiked, making Fai wince for a moment before continuing.

“Do you have a library?  I didn’t see one today.”

“I do.  You like books, don’t you?”

“Yes, sire.”

“I would like to show you the library soon, but there are many books of magic in there, and I don’t want you to read them until you have some training.”

“If—” Fai broke off and bit his lip.

“It’s all right,” Ashura said.

“If you tell us which books not to look at, could we see it?”

Ashura chuckled, even though there were tired-lines around his eyes.  “I think we could arrange something, Fai.  You must be quite anxious to see it.”

Fai focused on his food for a minute because he felt too shy to talk anymore.

When they were picking at the last few crumbs on their plates, Ashura’s tension snapped tight.

“Have you had enough supper?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Then it’s time for us to have a talk that might not be very pleasant.”

“About the man who found  us in the forest?” Yuui asked immediately.

Ashura looked surprised for a moment, but nodded.  “I’m afraid so.  Do you know his name?”

“No.”

“His name is Fei Wang Reed.  I wanted to start by telling you how I met him.  I was not a king then.  The king was my uncle.  I had a chance to take the throne after him, but there was another man who also had a claim.  That man’s name is Taishakuten.  If he had been a different man, perhaps I would not have done what I did.  But I knew in my heart that I would make a better king for Celes than Taishakuten.  So when Fei Wang Reed came to me and said he could make me king, I accepted.  He is capable of doing great magic, you see.  He produced a man who looked almost exactly like Taishakuten and who claimed to be his father.  It threw the court into quite a frenzy; I think you know what it means if a nobleman is discovered to be illegitimate.”

He waited for the twins to nod that they understood.

“Taishakuten’s own mother swore that this man was his real father, so he lost his claim to the throne.  Fei Wang Reed told me at that time that I would need to pay him for his services, but he didn’t tell me what the price would be until later—much later— only just over a week ago, in fact.  He came to me to collect his dues.  He told me that my payment would be to take into my castle two boys that he would bring to me.  He told me very little about those boys, only that they were princes from another world.  He told me that my job was to educate you as wizards and to make sure you grew up strong.  He made sure I knew that you would come to me frightened and hungry.  And he gave me only a single day to make preparations before he brought you to me.”

“Sorry,” Yuui said quietly.

“Why are you sorry?”

“We’re a lot of trouble,” Yuui explained.  “I’m sorry because we’re the price.”

“Oh, Yuui,” Ashura sighed.  He stood up from the table and gestured for both of them to come to him.  He drew them against him.  “Fai. Both of you.  As soon as I saw you, I didn’t think it mattered that it was Fei Wang Reed who brought you here.  I’m glad to have you.  I look forward to all the things I can teach you, I truly mean it.  You’ve made my heart so much lighter already.”

“Are you lonely, sire?” Yuui asked softly, taking his hand.  “Me and Fai know about that. We can help you feel better.”

Ashura’s heart was terribly full, so Fai didn’t understand how it could be lighter.  But there was a fluttering under his ribs and he thought maybe his was, too.

“We have to pay a price to Fei Wang Reed,” Yuui told Ashura.

His hands clenched down on them painfully.  “Tell me what it is.”

They did, explaining that the journey would happen later and haltingly trying to remember the things they were supposed to forget. They knew only that there was a curse placed on them that Fei Wang Reed had tried to erase from their minds.  They promised to try harder to remember what the curse was.

Ashura’s face was grave and his feelings left them with the sensation that their supper had turned to stone in their tummies.

“exacting a price from _children_ . . .” they heard him mumble, beginning to scowl.  “. . . despicable.  Oh, boys,” he said more loudly, clutching them close again.  “He sent me a message, and I was going to wait and read it after you went to bed.  I think I ought to read it now.”

He took a roll of paper from a pocket in his robes.  They waited with their hands and minds joined together to block out some of the torrential emotions flooding through the king.

“Oh, boys,” he said again, and they had to close their eyes and twine together as closely as possible, because he felt like too many things.  Sadness was bitter and salty, while anger was heavy and cloudy, and he was full of that strange thick mixture of hope and despair that meant he was thinking about the future.  Yuui had his nose pressed into Fai’s skin, breathing shallowly.  “What does he _want_?” Ashura snarled.

He was trying to hide something.  When people did that, it always felt like a bird that couldn’t stop moving from branch to branch.

“What is it?” Fai asked harshly.

“He thinks you won’t remember your promise.  He thinks he needs to make sure you have a good reason to travel for him later.”

“We _said_ we would.  It’s the price to live in this nice place with you, so it’s worth it,” Yuui objected.

Ashura, for some strange reason, smiled when he told them, but he didn’t feel like any of the things that would make a person smile.  “He took your mother.”

“He took Mummy?”

Fai didn’t feel like anything.  He was too surprised to know what he should feel like.

“He took your mother as his prisoner, and he isn’t going to give her back until you return from your journey.”

Mum had gone so black and bitter and horrible . . . but when they’d been smaller, they’d loved her a lot.  It wasn’t good for that man to have her.  Prisoners got hurt sometimes.  He didn’t want Mum to get hurt.

“He says she won’t be harmed as long as you do your job for him.  The message says he’s not a bad man, and he doesn’t want to hurt her, but he needs to be sure you understand how important this is,” Ashura went on, reading from the page that his hands were clutching with a horrible hot feeling and Fai was afraid the message would catch fire.  He plucked it out of Ashura’s hands, his throat feeling dry and thick.

“Fai!” Yuui said in astonishment, while Ashura just look stunned.

Fai just didn’t want the message to be harmed, and Ashura’s hands felt like they would light it on fire or shred it up.  Ashura felt terribly thick and heavy, and he could see that Yuui was breathing in shallow gasps because he smelled too much.  He wanted to protect Yuui, but when he tried to send his mind rippling out to him, it went around the message instead.

“We’re going to get strong so we can get her back,” he said.

Yuui stood behind him and wrapped his arms around Fai, spreading warmth over him and filling his head with a sense of listening to pretty music.  “Course we will,” he said quietly, and Fai could feel the honey-sweet part of him turning toward their new king.  “Ashura will help us.”

“Yes, I will,” Ashura said gravely.  “He’s an extraordinarily powerful magician, so we’ll have to do this his way.  I wish I could simply fight him for you.  We’ll just have to make sure you’re powerful enough to finish your task.  I suppose I don’t need to tell you that we ought to keep this a secret, do I?  I don’t want anyone else to worry about Fei Wang Reed.  We’ll take care of it ourselves, won’t we?  We’ll protect Celes and your mother.”

“Yes, sire,” Yuui said, still wrapped around Fai like a warm blanket.  “Nadeshiko would be sad, and I don’t want her to be sad.”

Ashura nodded, and he held out his hands.  “There’s nothing for us to do about it now, so I think we should try to find something more pleasant to think about.  If you come with me, I’ll show you the small private library I keep in my rooms, and you can see if there’s a book there you’d like to read.”

Fai wasn’t very excited about the library anymore, but Ashura’s upset and grief and worry was like the man was being stabbed by a thousand tiny pins all over, and Fai didn’t want him to be in pain like that.  So he followed him to the library.

It was strange, because they’d only been here for just about a week, and that didn’t seem like long enough, but it was true nonetheless, because people’s feelings didn’t lie.  Yuui’s and Ashura’s swirled around him, dug into him, and mixed with his own.  Ruval felt like a real home, the kind you could stay in forever, and he thought maybe he loved Ashura and he _knew_ Yuui did, and it was hard to tell sometimes because the feelings of love felt so many other different things like fear and hope and worry and joy, but he thought Ashura loved them back.

They’d get strong, and they’d go on their journey, Fai thought with determination, and then they’d bring Mum _here_.  There was a good king here instead of the dark emperor, and nobody would make her feel bad that she had twins, and then maybe she’d smell like flowers again and give them special soft hugs.  Ruval could be her home, too.

 

* * *

 

They were only three days into their lessons with their tutor when a new guest arrived at Ruval Castle.  Ashura greeted him and personally escorted him to the room where the boys were studying while Nadeshiko sat in the corner mending their clothes.

When the knock on the door came, the tutor snapped “Busy!” and indeed they were.  Their heads were being filled with languages and etymology and relationships between words, all taught to them with the tutor’s stabbing fingers on the pages and a nearly vicious excitement radiating from him.  They learned as quickly as they could, and took turns protecting each other’s minds from the buffeting of all that eagerness.

Nadeshiko opened the door and immediately dropped into a curtsey.  The tutor was standing and he should have bowed to the king, but instead he rolled his eyes and ducked his head impatiently.

“Sire.”

Yuui and Fai had stood up and lowered their heads, and now they turned their eyes curiously to the newcomer.  He looked very nice.  He had a good smile, the kind that Nadeshiko had, where you could tell he used it all the time and didn’t need to practice.

“Good afternoon,” Ashura said.  “How are your lessons?”

The tutor smelled like pepper again.  He didn’t like to be interrupted.  “They’re going splendidly, and we still have a lot to cover—”

“That’s wonderful.  I came to introduce the other tutor they will have.  Boys, this man is here from Ruval University to teach you magic.”

“Fujitaka C Terra,” the man said, bowing slightly.  He felt very calm and unruffled, Yuui noticed, and he wanted to get closer to smell him.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Come here, boys,” Ashura said, beckoning them.  Yuui came gladly, and Ashura put a hand on top of his head as he spoke.  “This is Yuui, and this is Fai.  Don’t worry, they’re very easy to tell apart.”

“My, my,” Fujitaka said in a jovial tone as he crouched down to their eye level, his robes sweeping the floor.  “Do you boys know what they say about twins?”

Yuui nodded, and felt his eyes prickling with tears.  He’d thought that Ashura would make sure nobody bothered them about that, but this man was their magic tutor and they’d see him every day, wouldn’t they?  Fai’s hand slipped into his and gave it a squeeze, trying to send a spark of comfort.  They had lots of good things in Ruval, and they were used to this.  It wouldn’t be so bad.

“It means a demon twisted us inside our mother before we were born,” Fai said dully, because Fujitaka looked confused.  The man glanced up at Ashura sharply, and through their eyes they traded feelings.

“In Celes, what they say is that someone was meant to be so great, so strong or so wise or so beautiful, that they needed two bodies to bring it all into the world,” Fujitaka said softly.  His eyes were brown, but they glittered like topaz and seemed to glow from inside.  Like them.  “For us, to have twin boys here in the palace means that our king is being blessed.”

Dumbstruck, Yuui could only hold onto Fai.  He heard a tiny sound behind him, and felt a whole wave of gratitude and happiness go rushing out of Nadeshiko.  She was crying, just a little bit, and her feelings right now toward Fujitaka were so warm and smelled so sweet that Yuui could have drifted off to sleep on them.  Fujitaka glanced up at her, and he had his nice smile again.

“It seems wrong to see tears from such a beauty,” he said, and he looked at the boys with a light of mischief in his glowing eyes.  “You’ll have to teach me how to make her laugh instead, eh?”  He winked at them, and Yuui giggled.

Then Fujitaka took Fai’s chin in his hand and looked carefully into his eyes.  Yuui bit back on a cry of alarm, but he relaxed when Fujitaka did the same thing to him in turn.  It didn’t hurt.  He was just looking.

“Your majesty,” he said, his voice soft with surprise, getting to his feet and looking at Ashura.

Ashura had a smile like he was laughing at something only he could hear.  “You’re the one who said twins happen because there’s too much for one body, Fujitaka.”

“I know, but— well, let’s hope they like us,” he said ruefully.  “Otherwise they’ll be scraping us off the walls in a year’s time.”

“That soon?” Ashura asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“That’s around the stage we all knew the most and had the least amount of control over it.  The Head Mage showed me the room in the university that’s still damaged from the night you had a disturbing dream and set fire to your bed.”

Ashura chuckled at that.  “Well, no one is perfect.  Now boys, listen.  The servants are going to show Fujitaka to his rooms here and he’ll spend tonight getting settled in.  You’ll begin tomorrow.  Nadeshiko, I’ll trust you to arrange their day so they have time with both tutors and also get a break during the afternoon.”

“Yes, your majesty,” she said, her voice a near-whisper even though she usually spoke to him normally.  Did Fujitaka make her nervous?

“Thank you.  Come with me, Fujitaka.  I’d love to chat with you, but I’m afraid I have to meet with my financial counselor this afternoon . . .”

Nadeshiko herded the twins back to the table, and they could feel how flustered she was.  They went back to their lessons happily enough, but they couldn’t help their giggles.  Nadeshiko was embarrassed that he’d called her a beauty.  She had all those feelings that the boy in the kitchen had about _her_.  She _liked_ their new tutor.  When they saw him tomorrow, they could find out what he felt.  Having Fujitaka to be their tutor was going to be _fun_.


End file.
